


All That We Hope To Be

by Shadows_Dreaming



Category: Naruto
Genre: Adventure, Blood, Demons, Friendship, Gen, Messing with facts, Time Travel, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-06-05 17:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6714310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadows_Dreaming/pseuds/Shadows_Dreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naruto has destroyed gods, created jutsus that have split open the skies, has watched nations fall and people rise and at the end of it all... there is nothing left. Except...</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That We Hope To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, Anything in bold is a memory of something someone said  
> italics is the fox talking  
> Please enjoy! and give feedback if you can!  
> This is unbeta'd so any mistake is my own.  
> Ok so i changed it (obviously) mostly because as it was before i couldn't get it to flow nicely and it was really hard to pull it into the plot that i wanted. I also had major writer's block because i didn't know how to continue it with what i had planned. I hope you all like it and sorry i know it took me forever and a day to update

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anything in bold is what other people have said to Naruto.  
> Anything italicized is Kurama talking.  
> Please tell me what you think, constructive criticism is always appreciated.

<!--  
@page { margin: 0.79in }  
P { margin-bottom: 0.08in }  
\-->

Rain fell softly, drizzling onto a sloping landscape, sliding through the dense air and pooling in the soft dips of broken bodies. Soldiers strewn all over the grassy hills, too young or too old to ever make a difference. The pitter-patter of it falling, the grey sky, the dead clouds hanging like vultures, all of it muting colours as it slipped between flesh and weapon and gently washed away all evidence of a brutal battle. Blood and mud washing away to reveal people. No longer enemies, or allies, strong, weak, bloodline, just husks. Reminders of the 'had been'. A profound sense of loss and longing in words no human will ever understand, but the sight will make their heart ache just the same. And still at the end, the rain fell.

  


Naruto really wished it wouldn't, wouldn't wipe away the titles that people wore like masks, like armour. Daimyo, lord, heir, ninja, _Hokage._ The sight would be so much easier to bear if he didn't know who was his enemy and who was his ally. If they were only faceless beings, if they were only puppets that had stopped working when this war, won with despair, against coloured madness had ended.

  


Some part of him, the part that he had always tried so desperately to hide, the part of him that was scared and cowardly, wished they would disappear. Calling back those notions of; if you can't see them there not there. Odd that the childish logic came back when that very childhood was laid, broken, dead at your feet.

  


But it was there, and closing your eyes can't take away the metallic scent of blood. It wouldn't, it couldn't. It wouldn't take away the slick liquid on the grass that sure as hell wasn't the rain.

  


And through all that death, he lived.

  


He was on his back, and from his point of view the rain blended hazily with the sunset. It crashed past the grey sky and clouds; split by the red rays of a giant star. It looked like the sky was bleeding, like it had been cut in two, and its blood was spilling over the horizon. It was painful in its beauty, it made him want to hold it in his hands and break it for daring to be beautiful when everything else was ugly and so, so _wrong._

  


His jumbled thoughts stuttered to a halt as blood forced its way past his lips, forcing him to turn his body so that the thick liquid wouldn't choke him. He let out a soft, sorrowful whine as he came face to face with his last friend, the last of his surrogate family, his last precious person.

  


He barely heard the torn ramble of, "Sasuke? Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke, Sasuke please don't be dead, you can't be dead, no, you're not dead, come on just talk to me please, please just one more time. You can call me a dobe, or an idiot cause goddammit I know I am. So just...please...don't leave. Just one more time... one more time... call me your friend…" that slipped like guilt-weighted stones past his lips.

  


All of it going largely ignored under the crushing weight of failure that welled up in his chest, and threatened to choke him in an entirely different manner than the iron on his tongue. Sasuke had been the last of his friends to go, and for all of his betrayals he had become a loyal friend and an unflinching general. He didn't want to remember how he had been murdered, but his mind mocked him as image after image played round and round his head. Blood, and death, and battle, and... Oh god Sasuke, why? WHY? He begged his mind for peace, for rest, and for a second believed he got it.

  


Unfortunately, for all of his own laziness the fox was never one to let others be idle, and if it ended up torturing someone than all the better.

  


_'Can you stand?'_

  


Naruto bit back a groan, did it matter? At this point everything should have been over; he had worked hard and he deserved to rest. The fox was, as always, a stubborn-son-of-a-bitch.

  


_'Can you stand?'_

  


Naruto snarled, ignoring the pain of his broken vocal cords. He was tired and all he wanted was rest.

  


Life never had been interested in giving he what he wanted, there was a reason he was so willing to fight.

  


_'Can you stand?'_

  


By that point Naruto had had enough.

  


"What's the point! There is nothing left! I have nothing left, nothing to give and nothing to fight for!" His throat shuddered, it hadn't been designed to roar but sometimes that was the only sound Naruto was capable of making.

  


With a gentleness highly uncharacteristic of the perpetually grumpy demon, he spoke softly.

  


_'You have me.'_

  


Naruto found it odd that the fox managed to be gentle and yet roughly condescending. As if it was utterly ridiculous for Naruto to think the fox would ever not be there. Even with all the things he had been through— all that they both had been through— he would still be there. Well, not that he had that much of a choice anyway.

  


Grimacing, he apologized and it was only his guilt— he had enough, he didn't need any, couldn't handle any more— that had him shifting his arms,

  


For his people.

  


Digging the heels of his palms in the ground,

  


For his village.

  


Fighting against the pull of wet earth that threatened to send him tumbling down.

  


He would stand,

  


If only for the lonely demon who asked him to.

  


He locked his elbows, and screamed through clenched teeth as his ribs screeched in protest. Bones ground their broken edges against his flesh, ripping into muscle as joints shuddered, barely clinging to place. For those few moments it took to get to his knees the only thing he knew was agony.

  


A slightly pessimistic voice told him that it was better than looking at his surroundings, he wasn't entirely sure his mind would survive the view intact. But because he was an idiot, and he never took well to people saying he shouldn't do something, he looked anyway. Only to see a victory won by the price of thousands; men, women, children, Shinobi. He looked with remembrance, and saw a prediction told by a prophet of death, eyes red with madness, tomoe spinning, ripping into the eyes of his victim.

  


'Tell me little Hokage, how far will the body count climb? How much more will you give? Even when there is nothing left, what will you do?'

  


The question had been redundant, they had both known the answer: Everything.

  


He had always been just a little too quick to give himself away, and he had payed his due in blood.

  


The scene was as horrifying as he expected it would be, as much as he wished it wasn't. He looked and was abruptly reminded about how much Neji's fate seemed to love irony. Because how could it be anything but ironic that the last Uzumaki was to meet his end at the ruined edges of Uzushigakure.

  


After Konoha had fallen, the survivors had hobbled their way to one of the only strongholds left. After all, there was a reason the houses of Whirlpool had stayed standing long after its inhabitants had left. It is also where the Last Battle took place, and where he rested now.

  


To his left a whirlpool twisted with lazy strength, white sea foam riding atop the waves that rose to swallow the shore and to his right the hills were a mutilated mess of upturned earth and scorched bodies. The skies a rolling mass of bruised purple and dark gray that only ended when they were stained bloody crimson by the horizon and seemed to buckle under their own weight, Madara lay dead near his feet and Naruto suddenly couldn't fight the urge to puke.

  


Jolting forward he dry-heaved and vaguely contemplated throwing up on the stupid megalomaniacs face. He would have deserved it, taking Madara down had taken too much, and yet the alternative wasn't an option. But the victory was paid for in blood and tears, fraying bonds and dying dreams. In the end he decided it was a good thing that he didn't lose his lunch; it would have been a complete waste of ramen. Although he was surprised he even had anything left to throw up, he had been fighting for half a week without stopping. He'd been fighting for years without stopping.

  


_'Stand, Naruto._ '

  


He started slightly in surprise, despite being the host of Kurama for so long he could count on one hand the times the stupid fox had called him by name. Without thinking he moved to obey, not listening to a phantom argument that played in the back of head.

  


'You never think Naruto, you know that? We aren't children anymore! And you can't keep having ideals like this! You can't save everybody!'

  


That had been the last time he had spoken to Shikamaru and he tried his hardest not to dwell on it.

  


Hands on his knees and straining upwards he muttered, "Is it over?"

  


...And the fox was suspiciously silent.

  


"Answer me!"

  


Because if it was over and if all his enemies were gone, he could bury his dead and find a nice little hole to crawl into and finally, finally, sleep. Knowing that the war had been won.

  


Except, of course, it hadn't been, so he couldn't. And that was another irony to be heaped upon all the others that shadowed his life. How could he sleep when his friends were dead and his village razed to the ground, how could he work so hard to win, when at the end it didn't matter?

  


**{It will never matter Naruto, no matter how hard you try.**

**Poor little demon child, forever cursed to be left behind by humans.}**

  


_'You think I fought this hard with you just to watch you die? Get up you fool, we can still salvage this!'_

  


The fox could sympathize with Naruto, after all he understood loss—

  


Red eyes robbing him of his will, spinning and glinting in the moonlight. A tiny seal trapping him in a body almost too small to handle it, suppressing his chakra to a fraction of what it once was. A man's back to him, with his cry of, 'Why wasn't I good enough?' Being forcefully placed in a world too young, too weak to tolerate him—

  


Yes, loss was one emotion he understood well. But he knew full well that comfort wasn't really in his nature, he had been alone far too long to know how to handle, how to gently cater to a human's (his friend's) grief. So he would do what he always did, insult the kid until he started fighting back.

  


' _Oi...Oi, oi, oi! I didn't make a pact with some weak-willed, moronic brat, did I? So what if people died, it happens all the time!'_

  


"Fuck you... They were my people, MINE!" Naruto snapped his head up in a rage, forgoing his pain. "My people to protect, and I just... let them die... I couldn't protect them..."

  


**{Haha, it's your fault Naruto, you should have stopped this when you had the chance.}**

  


_'You know what? If it tears you up so much stop moping around like a coward and do something! You have the greatest demon there ever was on your side, and the knowledge of a seal master for Kami's sake! If there isn't a way to get what you want, make one, you single-minded twat!_ '

  


Kurama knew full well that he was probably excessively harsh, but he knew no other way (without ruining his reputation) of getting his jinnchuriki back on his feet. Seeing the boy so down left him feeling restless.

  


But Naruto smiled and the restless feeling abated. For his part Naruto... almost couldn't remember the last time he smiled because of genuine amusement, it would have had to of been before Sakura fell.

  


With a last heave he managed to get to his feet, almost immediately having to rest his weight against the tree behind him to keep his balance. His mind, though, was far from his body. It focused on insane ideas, the ones he was most known for, and teased apart anything related.

  


He thought of the Hiraishin, of desperate theories made when the death of his precious people became almost too much to handle. There was more than one time he had tried to make something like this, the only difference this time was that there were no loyal Uchihas, or sensible Harunas, or perverted sensei to keep him from completing it.

  


Time-Travel.

  


Knowledge and desperate wishes came to together in a patch work solution that fell somewhere between impossible and not-fucking-likely, that was fine though he had been up against worse odds. He was anything, if not stubborn, even if that same pessimistic voice told him it could never be expected to work.

  


One more time, he promised himself. I'll try one more time, for the demon that wouldn't let him quit, for the people that stood by his side, and for the friend that could have been more but never got the chance. And if it failed, well, he wouldn't be alive to try again, but then, when had that ever stopped him before?

  


There was only problem, well, only one that he would acknowledge anyway. Most of his and even Kurama's chakra had been depleted in the battle with Madara. In order for this to work, he would need massive amounts that at the moment he didn't have. Either he would have to wait days for their chakra stores to recover or... turning to the side he stared at the massive whirlpool, and thought of the old legends of Uzushiogakure. Of the amplification of circular seals and the feeling of falling further down and inwards, of latent power trapped within swirling tides.

  


Later, he would think it was because life was a sadist that loved watching him get up after it had thrown him literally and figuratively to the ground, that it worked. Kurama would stand by his opinion that it was because of him that it did.

  


Regardless when the seal was complete he didn't bother looking back, there was nothing for him there and though he never believed the gods would help, he prayed that he would never return to this land of decaying hope and bloody memories. He didn't allow himself to dwell on if further as he waded into the swirling currents of the whirlpool as activated the seal.

  


He fell further towards the center as every bit of his chakra was pulled into the seal, overriding his bodies instinctive attempt to keep enough inside his body to keep him alive.

  


For a while it seemed like it was going to work, but then his chakra petered out and Kurama soon had no more to give and all Naruto could do was screamed in rage. He was so close he could feel the present shudder around him, folding in on itself and forcefully about to spit him out, but it wouldn't because for once in his life he was out of chakra. He knew, knew that all he needed was one last push but he couldn't find the strength to give it. He could only rage against the seal pushing and shoving as if physical force would matter and suddenly he felt something give. He heard gentle laughter, voices of ancestors long passed; ghosts that lived in the whirlpool. They pulled him down and threw their non-existent weight behind his, and he had one last thought before time and space ripped itself to shreds in his hands;

  


'In a way, he really is no better than Obito. Ripping away the foundation of worlds just so he could see his loved ones smiling beneath the gossamer vales.'

  


A thousand images flew through his head, and he saw a thousand ways he could make this right and a thousand ways he could fuck this up and such a small, small margin for error. It would have terrified him if he could have found the time to think past the pain.

  


It was odd, how his sense of time warped, he breathed in an eternity and spat out only a few seconds, and what could only have been a few moments stretched on forever and then back again to only a few moments. He floated in an expanse of nothingness, where neither sound nor light, cold or warmth or taste and touch existed. For a short while he wondered if they ever existed at all, if this is what death was like.

  


Soon enough, and yet not nearly, the darkness shattered and matter once more became available to him. It was like walking down a long road as all his surroundings shattered and came together again once more; piece by piece. It was like being squeezed through a tunnel too small and the pain of it unspeakable. It mentally scraped his skin raw, tearing past layers of flesh until he was nothing; completely lost on everything except the sensation of being sent away at incredible speeds. It would have taken his breath away if he wasn't positive that his lungs had collapsed. Sensation came back with the force of a chidori through the heart.

  


His body decided to happily informed him that it was 'tapping out' because it had had enough of Naruto's shit, and was not about to put up with anymore. Needless to say that this 'informing' was Naruto passing out. He barely got to smell the leaves and feel the crushed grass beneath him, before darkness swallowed his mind.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It wasn't particularly surprising that the fox recovered first, noticing immediately that while his cage had stayed the same size, the bars were now pressed right up against the doors that led to the kit's mind.

  


It didn't take him long to figure out why.

  


Naruto woke up in a lot of pain, followed by a torrent of cursing. The wounds he had sustained from the battle with Madara had yet to be healed, even his incredible healing ability simply could not heal the damage so quickly, especially after what Naruto had just gone through.

  


It took a few seconds for the white to fade from his vision, the odd pain in his chest certainly didn't help. After it had, he opened his eyes and the insistent ringing in his ears began clearing up into and equally annoying sound: The fox's pissed off lecture.

  


_"…And I swear kit, you didn't even try to check the seal! You didn't even know if it would kill you or not, and every time you do stupid shit like this I am the one left to piece your tattered ass back together!"_

  


Naruto's memories of the past few hours snapped into place and he nearly shoved his broken rib into his lung (which probably wouldn't of mattered cause one of the damn things had collapsed, he knew it!), ignoring Kurama's shout of anger, when he moved to stand.

 

When he got to his feet, shaky legs and labored breathing be damned, he came really close to passing out again. 'I'm back, I'm really back' the thought was tinged more with hysteria then happiness. He honestly did not think the seal would work, although at this point he was a master at pulling through by sheer willpower and dumb luck.

  


Of course he was a bit more preoccupied with the fact that he was in the middle of a whirlpool. Well.... he clearly was suffering from blood loss when he executed this plan because he, also clearly, didn't use any foresight.

  


Spluttering he was immediately thrown back into the water. How he hadn't noticed the giant swirling body of water the second he became conscious was probably the shock of being thrown back in time, or at least that was the story he was sticking to.

  


Fighting against the pull of the water and the tightening in his chest he felt something grab the back of his shirt and hull him out but darkness encroached on his vision and he passed out before he could properly find out what had happened.

  


Coming to in his mindscape he wondered how injured he was though that thought was quickly shoved aside in favor of being utterly stunned at the view 'What the hell happened to the mindscape!' While being inside the cage which held the Kyuubi, had never particularly bothered him, the sudden face full of red fur was slightly unsettling. Kurama made an odd growling purr, his form of a laugh as Naruto fell on his ass.

 

Naruto, for all his seemingly stupid decisions, was rather smart so he only needed a hint to come to his own conclusion _. "Kid, Molecules cannot be destroyed or created."_ The fox also just loved being cryptic, knew that it pissed his host off to no end.

  


Fortunately Naruto understood the implications immediately. Since his body hadn't reverted to a younger self either there was another Naruto running around or he had gone far enough back that he had yet to be born. In either case he was essentially in a universe that didn't have room for him, which explained the feeling of being pulled through a very small tunnel and the constant ache he could distantly feel.

  


Regarding the change of the mindscape, Naruto could make an educated guess. Since he went back in time, and he had no actual "existence" in this universe. He, the "original" Naruto had never been born into this timeline. So any restrictions the seal had between the container and the contained had been removed, allowing Naruto permanent access to nearly all of the Kyuubi's chakra. Naruto now held the brunt of the demon's chakra inside his own chakra lines. Physically bringing them closer so that they were not taking up as much "space" in this universe.

  


'Since Kurama is basically a giant fox shaped lump of chakra…Urgh… I have no idea what the side effects will be.' Naruto thought to himself. Even in his bijuu mode, most of the fox's chakra was wrapped around him, and not running through his veins. Poisonous nature of it aside, even Naruto's immense amount of storage might not be able to handle the sheer amount of chakra. Honestly, what damage it did wouldn't matter because Naruto couldn't exactly do anything about it. He wasn't willing to give up all the chakra, so like many times before, he was just going to have to suck it up.

  


This was of course when another problem occurred to him. 'Holy shit what year is it? How far back did we go?'. The fox growled in slight annoyance " _why do you only listen to me when you need information? I'm not of fucking calendar, figure it out for yourself_ "

  


Naruto frowned, that could be problematic. It was a serious possibility that he might have come back to late to fix anything let alone change the timeline. When he woke up he would have to go to the nearest town about five clicks away, this was if he was even exactly where he was when he transported himself back in time (and seriously he was trying not to think too hard on that, on all the ways he had seen himself mess up). At the time he had been on the islands south-west side, since he was deposited in a whirlpool he probably was at the same place, but Uzushiogakure had a lot of whirlpools. If he had somehow ended up on the North side he would have to cross the entire island to get to the mainland. Either way it would be a while before he could get any information.

  


Noise began to filter into his mindscape, his body had finally healed enough that it was willing to let him wake up. Judging by the soreness he could already feel his body, particularly centered in his lungs (has Kurama not healed that yet?) it was doing so very grudgingly.

  


Opening his eyes he swore at the light that burned his pupils, blinking away the afterimages he turned his head and thought he saw a ghost because there was no way Akira was standing there.

Akira had been his closest and strongest fox summon, his graceful strength that had kept him standing when his world was lost again and again to chaos. A pillar to lean against, but she had been killed due to injuries. She had been delivering vital information about an ambush by the enemy when she herself had, ironically, been ambushed. She had gotten the scroll to Shikaku, who had immediately started countermeasures, before staggering over to him and collapsing in his arms. He had done everything he could but she hadn't made it.

  


Kurama had to dryly point out that because he had made it to the past it was only logical that anyone who hadn't dies before this point would still be alive, only to then have to yell at him to _stay still goddammit_! Because his wounds still hadn't finished healing and it was more than likely that Akira wouldn't remember him -which on its own was depressing but that was ok because she was alive, which meant he had a chance to become Sau-Mi-Valka again.

  


Taking a second to look at her he noticed she only had six tails instead of the eight -the most a summoned fox could get- that she had had in his timeline. Her fur was still the colour of ashes with flame yellow-red at the tips of her tail, the inside of her ears, her ankles, her chest and the two small flame shaped marks just above her eyes still made her face highly expressive.

  


At the moment her tall wide ears were perked up and her golden eyes sparkled with mischief and curiosity. She cocked her head to the side "Master?", well that explained a few things. Since all summoned animals have demon blood in them -which is what allows them to speak and use chakra- the fox's considered Kurama as their most powerful leader. She must of sensed Kurama's chakra inside him and pulled him out, probably wondering what the hell he had been doing in a whirlpool of all things.

  


He smiled "not quite".

  


Her ears flattened and her eyes narrowed. None of the summon fox's had been pleased with the continued sealing of their master, they had known well enough not to attack the jinchuriki since they were almost always surrounded by other humans but this one was on it's own and therefore fair game.

  


Sensing her preparation to attack the Kyuubi took over. Naruto's eyes turned red and his teeth and nails sharpened giving him an animalistic look, "enough Akira" Naruto's voice had deepened and his eyes flashed warningly.

  


He spoke more to Akira but Naruto had stopped paying attention, the world growing hazy at the edges as he receded inside his mind. Not that it bothered him, just before Kurama had taken over he had spotted the bells that lay at the summon fox's feet. The very same bell that Kakashi had given him just before The Battle. The one that had been given to his teacher by Naruto's own father, and Jiraya before him.

  


So lost in memories those bells held he didn't mind that Kurama was intentionally suppressing so he couldn't understand the conversation, what he did mind was the lack of warning given when Kurama gave him back control. Falling on ones face is never a pleasant experience, throw in life threatening injuries and severe exhaustion from restless nights during the war and it was enough to make him pass out...again. He could almost swear he heard a foxy laugh as his eyes fell shut.

  


It was the sound of the bells that woke him up- the sound wasn't by any means pretty, the relatively soft metal was bent out of shape and it's noise distorted. He was pretty sure there was a metaphor somewhere in there about breaking bells and breaking men but he didn't care enough to try to fish it out.

  


He had managed to roll over on his back, although that might have been Akira's doing and the fox had been kind enough to place the bells just out of reach. The little shit.

  


He didn't reach for them though, body sore and not quite ready to move. Waking up is hard, it had always been but it seems harder know. The weight of all he has to fix is right in the back of his mind, ready to tear into him with the impossibility of it all. He uses an old childhood trick and doesn't think about it. Pushes it back until the world is just a little bigger, just a little less scary.

  


_"You finished with your beauty sleep yet, princess?"_

  


By this point in his friendship with the fox he was well beyond blushing at the teasing remarks. Of course that didn't stop him from sulking about it, because who wanted to be insulted by a mass of chakra? It made it worse that he somehow had an amount of witty remarks that would even make Kakashi jealous. He appreciated it though, sometimes, when he became trapped in his own mind and no amount of false cheer and optimism and hope could drag him out. Not like he'll ever tell the fox though, Kurama would be insufferable after that.

 

'Just tell me what the damage is.' _"Well, you're not exactly ready for bikini season yet, but your major injuries have been mostly healed. It would have been faster and you probably wouldn't have even passed out if you had listened to me from the beginning and sat your scrawny ass down"_

  


Naruto internally rolled his eyes- he would gain more information on the fox's talk with Akira later- for know he extended his senses, trying to get a lock on where he was. Careful to keep his eyes closed and his breathing (why was that so hard?) even he moved to get up.

  


He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the pain, when the breath didn't come. Instead it felt as if fire was pouring itself down his throat. His lungs spasmed and he coughed hard, every time he tried to inhale it would start another round. In a near panic he called for Kurama.

  


What is happening!?

  


_Nothing is blocking your lungs, it's like there rejecting whatever your inhaling._

  


And still his lungs screamed for the air they wouldn't except. Finally Kurama floods Naruto's lungs with chakra forcing the organs to do their job.

  


Grimacing Naruto dragged himself closer to the water, where he could feel the hole he ripped through trying to repair itself. The closer he was to the portal the easier it was to breathe. Which meant it was still open. There wasn't anything he could do about that, it should heal on it's own and since everything on the other side was dead he wouldn't have to worry about unwelcome visitors and with it being in the middle of a whirlpool the chances of someone traveling to the future before the hole repaired itself were slim.

  


_"What is it with you and attracting trouble"._

 

Naruto flinched slightly in surprise, now that he wasn't so occupied with breathing he noticed that the fox's voice had never sounded so close before. Usually it was as if the demon was on his shoulder and talking in his ear now it sounded as if the Kuram's voice was an extension of his own thoughts in a different tone. It was disconcerting and most likely a side effect of the change in the seal.

  


"Hey! It's not like I'm the only one it could just be you, you know!". The Fox only snorted before turning sombre, red-yellow eyes to focus on his own.

  


_"It's hard to say but the only thing that comes to mind is that this time line is rejecting us"_

  


Naruto grimaces both at the abrupt change in conversation and the meager explanation offered. However it made a certain amount of sense. Even if the universe had all the things he needed to live if it didn't want him here it might react like a body would a foreign organism, mainly make it really difficult to stay. It was probably only Naruto's affinity to the wind and the fox's healing power that he is able to breathe at all. There also wasn't really anything he could do about this either except hope that his body would adapt to the timeline. Dammit even in the past there were more things he couldn't fix than he could. Even in the past life saw fit to stack the odds against him, unbidden a slight smirk came to his lips. Perhaps it was only fair afterall Naruto has only ever played with a deck of lying cards and smiling ghosts.

  


The wind off the ocean behind him blows past him in a movement that disturbs the bells. Groaning as he gets up he stoops to pick them up. He would have liked spending a few more moments to recover but the howl that screamed through the air had him pushing himself up. It was the all to familiar hunting call of a Church Grim, if he didn't move fast someone was going to die.

  


Ignoring Kurama's grumbling he took off, quickly pocketing the bells. Racing across the ground it was easy to tell that Akira had deposited him on the mainland. The soft sand making it hard to run.

  


Reaching out his senses he tried to pin point the demon's location. The Church Grim's oily dark chakra was straight ahead. Dark with malevolence and bloodlust he knew immediately there would be no talking to it.

  


There was another chakra that whispered against his senses, close to the demon and distantly familiar. Cold with the thick sent of salt off the ocean, but he couldn't place it. He poured on more speed hoping to make it before this person became a victim.

  


He passes the shores and grabbed the boy before a paw slammed into the ground where he had been.

  


He nearly doesn't avoid the second strike when familiarity hits him like a punch to the gut. Haku, the boy was Haku. No wonder the chakra felt so familiar.

 

He was easily years younger than when Naruto had first met him, probably only about six but he was still as clever as ever. The senbon quickly numbing his wrist attested to that.

  


Dropping the boy he looked back at the dog, black as tar it looked like a doberman. It's spine protruding out of it's skin, jagged spikes growing along the outer edges all the way down it's tail. A scull like bone structure covered the top of it's head which it weaved back and forth threateningly at him.

  


He sighed, so not just a church grim. By the look of it the dog was well on it's way to being a Hellhound. Obviously just what he needed at the moment.

  


With his wounds the way they were he wasn't about to attempt fighting it. Thankfully there were other avenues available to him.

  


Rolling up the ruined sleeve of his coat he sent chakra down his arm activating the seals painted on his flesh. They glowed red, seven circles of ink increasing in size as they went from inner wrist to elbow a black line slashing vertically along their diameter. Having to hold all of Kurama's chakra in his own lines was already stressing them, this probably really wouldn't help.

  


'You think we can do this Kurama?'

  


_'No'_ The fox's voice was oddly enough deadpan and irritated and the same time. ' _I think your an idiot. Seriously Gods help me from stupid Uzuzmaki and their damn invincibility complexes'_

  


Naruto cheerfully ignores the surly fox, it is the work of a moment to slip the chain around the dog's neck; about the size of a pony. It's dragged half mad and snarling into the seal. He locks it twisting the line from vertical to horizontal as the last echo's of the bests howling fade. Utterly anti-climactic if you asked him but alas most sealings were so long as you were skilled enough to ignore the set up.

  


It is, of course, the exact moment when Zabuza's decides to make his entrance. Hurling his monster of a sword Naruto's head. Naruto squawks as he ducks under the blade.


End file.
